bear hunting and also to hunt other large animals, like wisents and war horses. The sharpened head of a bear spear was enlarged and usually had the form of a bay leaf. Right under the head there was a short crosspiece that helped to fix the spear in the body of an animal. Often it was placed against the ground on its rear point, which made it easier to absorb the impact of the attacking beast. The Russian chronicles first mention rogatina as a military weapon in the year 1149, and as a hunting weapon in the year 1255. 13th century Sokha The sokha is a light wooden plough which could be pulled by one horse. Its origin was in northern Russia, most likely in the Novgorod Republic, where it was used as early as in the 13th century. A characteristic feature of sokha construction is the bifurcated plowing tip (рассоха), so that a sokha has two plowshares, later made of metal, which cut the soil. The sokha is an evolution of a scratch-plough by an addition of a spade-like detail which turns the cut soil over (in regular ploughs the curved mouldboard both cuts and turns the soil). Pelmeni Pelmeni is a dish originating from Siberia, now considered part of Russian national cuisine. It is a type of dumpling consisting of a filling that is wrapped in thin unleavened dough. The word pelmeni comes from the Finno-Ugric Komi, Udmurt, and Mansi languages. It is unclear when pelmeni entered the cuisines of indigenous Siberian people and when it first appeared in Russian cuisine, but most likely it was during the Mongol conquests and Mongol-Tatar invasion of Rus' in the 13th century, when Mongol-Tatars took the basic idea from the Chinese dumplings and brought it to Siberia and Eastern Europe. Onion dome The onion dome is a dome whose shape resembles an onion. Such domes are often larger in diameter than the drum upon which they are set, and their height usually exceeds their width. The whole bulbous structure tapers smoothly to a point. The so-called onion dome is the dominant form for church domes in Russia, and though the earliest preserved Russian domes of the type date from the 16th century, illustrations of the old chronicles indicate that they were used since the late 13th century. Grand Duchy of Moscow 14th century Lapta Lapta is a Russian ball game played